A Weekly Food Plan is a smart way to reduce the “What’s for dinner?” dilemma.

I promised my wife that the boys and I would take of the weekly food plan this week.

To make good on that, I made chili tonight. I multi-tasked. I prepped the chili while watching the Notre Dame vs. UConn women’s basketball game. And WOW! What a game.

We’re in triple overtime as I’m typing this. It’s exciting And it’s tough to make chili with all the nail-biting going on. Geez!

Here’s the recipe for my wife’s CrockPot Chili. It went in the slow-cooker at 9:15PM and (on low) will stay there until the alarm clock goes off at 4:30AM. Yes, you read that right — 4:30AM is when the iPhone starts playing that cool marimba tune. To get everybody up and ready for school (which includes showers, ironing clothes, breakfast for everyone) we have to be ready to start the day early. Really early.

In a large slow-cooker add:

1 lb of browned, lean ground beef

1 46oz can of tomato juice

1/2 an onion, diced

3 ribs of celery, diced

1/2 cup diced green pepper

1 14.5 oz. can of diced tomatoes (including liquid)

1 14.5 oz. can of kidney beans (no need to rinse, just add them to the pot)

2 t. chili powder

1 t. cumin

1/4 t. coarse, black pepper

Cook on low for about eight hours.

What did we make over the weekend?

Chicken and noodles with mashed potatoes and sweet corn. We have leftovers.

Hamburger + Potato casserole. We ate that tonight and still have leftovers.

Chicken salad (we added Paprika this time — EXCELLENT addition). Nate took some in his lunch and made a sandwich at school. We still have some for lunches tomorrow.